Place of Articulation

Robert Mannell Important: If you have not yet either installed the phonetic font "Charis SIL" or tested this installation to determine if the phonetic characters installed properly then click here to go to the phonetic font help pages. Place of articulation is defined in terms of the the articulators involved in the speech gesture. It is common to refer to a speech gesture in terms of an active articulator and a passive articulator.

Active Articulators
An active articulator is the articulator that does all or most of the moving during a speech gesture. The active articulator is usually the lower lip or some part of the tongue. These active articulators are attached to the jaw which is relatively free to move when compared to parts of the vocal tract connected directly to the greater mass of the skull.

Passive Articulators
A passive articulator is the articulator that makes little or no movement during a speech gesture. The active articulator moves towards the relatively immobile passive articulator. Passive articulators are often directly connected to the skull. Passive articulators include the upper lip, the upper teeth, the various parts of the upper surface of the oral cavity, and the back wall of the pharynx.

Naming Place of Articulation

The place of articulation of a consonant is generally named for the passive articulator. Sometimes the active articulator is also explicitly included in the name of a place of articulation by use of the prefixes "apico-" and "lamino-".

Illustrations of Place of Articulation in English

The following links lead to diagrams that illustrate place of articulation in English. These diagrams are applicable to most dialects of English. The possible exception is the diagram for /r/ which may be articulated differently in some dialects of English. 1. 2. 3. 4. Oral Stop Articulation Nasal Stop Articulation Fricative Articulation Approximant Articulation

Table of Possible and Impossible Articulations

The following table makes a distinction between articulations that are actually used contrastively in the world's languages, articulations that are not used but are possible, and

articulations that are impossible. In some cases, articulations marked with "***" are actually physically impossible and in some cases "***" marks articulations that are too difficult to be considered serious possibilities for linguistic use. Active Articulator Passive Articulator Upper Lip Upper Front Teeth Alveolar Ridge Hard Palate Soft Palate Uvula Pharynx Wall Vocal Folds Lower Lip bilabial labiodental --*** *** *** *** *** Tongue Tip --(apico-) dental (apico-) alveolar retroflex *** *** *** *** Tongue Blade --(lamino-) dental (lamino-) alveolar palatoalveolar *** *** *** *** Front of Tongue *** ----palatal --*** *** *** Back of Tongue *** *** *** *** velar uvular *** *** Root of Tongue *** *** *** *** *** *** pharyngeal *** Vocal Folds *** *** *** *** *** *** *** glottal

In the above table:*** means not a possible articulation --- means not found in any language (so far) From the above table, it can be seen that places of articulation are completely specified by both the active and the passive articulator. Some common articulatory distinctions are not completely captured by specification of the passive articulator alone. For example:

Labiodental articulations cannot be fully specified by just the passive articulator (front upper teeth) as this would fail to distinguish such articulations from dentals. Dentals can be either apico-dentals or lamino-dentals (and in some languages these can contrast). It is essential that the active articulator is specified to separate them.

Note that, with the exception of the lower lip and the vocal folds, the majority of active articulators are different parts of the tongue. Refer to this figure from lecture 1 for the location of these different parts of the tongue.

Examples of Languages with Complex Place Contrasts

Malayam (India) Nasal contrasts at six places of articulation

Wangurri (Australia) Nasal contrasts at six places of articulation

Yanuwa (Australia) Oral stops contrast at six places of articulation

Mandarin Chinese Fricatives contrast at five places of articulation (all examples spoken with a high level tone) fa to issue sa three sand a blind xa sound of laughter